Friday, February 20, 2009

Sean Delonas recent cartoon in the New York Post depicts police having shot and killed a chimpanzee while making reference to President Obama’s recently passed economic stimulus bill.

The cartoon has sparked widespread anger and outrage, and community leaders have coordinated ongoing protests of the New York Post.

GLAAD’s President had this to say about the controversy:

"Sean Delonas has a history of defamatory work and we stand with those who decry this recent cartoon as unacceptable and a vicious portrayal that neither enlightens nor entertains. It’s unacceptable that the New York Post continues to provide a platform for such instances of hateful defamation".

GLAAD is urging us to speak out against these bigoted cartoons which portray minorities in a negative light.

I'm as much against hate writings as the next person, but i dont feel this had anything to do with that. it was a satirical cartoon about the lack of substance with a failing stimulous package that could well have been written by a monkey. should this cartoon have come out under the bush administration i don't think it would have gotten nearly as big as a response. i fail to see anything dealing with racism or as stated in the blog bigotry. with all that said i do believe that this should and is protected under the freedom of speech laws that are at the heart of a free society. this does not mean u have the right not to be offended. and as people have been i believe u do have a write to state that u find it offensive and state why. but to out right state it was bigoted is merely an attempt to use words to arouse masses when it really is not necessary.

Really, are people still not getting how that cartoon was racist? Even some of the staff of the New York Post thinks its offensive. At the very least the cartoon is in poor taste considering the context.

should this cartoon have come out under the bush administration i don't think it would have gotten nearly as big as a response.

i fully accept and agree that this was in bad taste. but during the bush administration the depiction of a monkey was often use as a reference to him directly or his administration. looking through years of political cartoons shows monkeys in sync with a ruling governmental party. it is the easiest and most recognizable symbol of a failed or bumbelling party. as for his other pieces i do agree that his work is in bad taste. however in this society people do have the right to say and express themselves however they feel. it is this right that makes a strong, fair and just country.

We I was in the Army we were sitting around the barracks drinking hefevisons and someone made a sick racist remark. The rest of my friends jump in and added there ignorance. I looked at the people who moments before were my home-es, partners and friends. It was like I had left the room and was sitting with people I didn't know or ever wanted to know.I started looking at people in a whole different way that night. I find that cartoon sickly and desperate. Yes black people were referred to as "monkeys" that night. It made me ill then as it does today. As time went on I began to appreciate the values and strength of my new partners.

...or that you're missing the point that not only can this particular cartoon be interpreted as a racially charged attack on the president, but in the cartoonists entire body of work there is a theme of such bigotry that it can;t be ignored any longer by the general public

The previous page in the Post had a large picture of Obama signing the stimulus bill. Then on the next page the cartoon of the white policemen shooting the chimp and saying that theres no one to write the next stimulus bill next time.

Also on the poll is a sign that says beware of dogs which is very common in the south where racism is still very prevalent. I live in eastern KY and many people here, perhaps most, think that President Obama is an arab muslim terrorist racist Anti-Christ.

Historically, racists have compared African Americans to apes.

They knew this would be inferred by a large segment of the population.

I have been a lot less offended by the cartoon than by the flood of trolls on every liberal blog trying to claim that they're so ignorantly pure that they never did see the racism so obviously blacks make up racism and it's non-offensive, free speech.

The cartoonist is a hideous hateful person (see his long history of cartoons) and the paper that employs him is pretty much only for white supremacists (look at their history of reporting on pretty much everything). This comic was made because he can't just publish a blank page with the n-word on it. I tossed in my two cents to the paper only because Mr. Satan himself seems to be getting pissed about the whole affair and might be persuadable.

But I am tired of the racist trolls. Yes, this is racist. Yes, there is a long recorded history of depicting blacks as monkeys. Yes, there is a long recorded history of black leaders being assassinated (including in recent times as mayors) and of black leaders receiving constant death threats. Yes, even if the artist was so stupid that it was honestly a mistake, it wouldn't change the fact that the cartoon in its depiction is racist. Ignorance is no excuse for vomiting cultural hate.

I suspect most of them are right-wing white supremacists, stirred up by the debate to try and push their "racism doesn't exist, PC is a lie to keep the white man down" crap, but for those few earnest allies who're falling for that crap, oi, wake up. It's long past time to actually face the racism in our society and for the white folks to do their fair share of the fighting too.

"So we're just going to let this kind of work continue to be published, even though it's clearly derogatory to so many groups, in the name of free speech." - T.R. Xands

Well, that's how free speech works. "Derogatory" is an entirely subjective concept. Conservatives and religious people might describe criticism of their views in the same terms.

The New York Post should be free to publish whatever it wants as long as it is not libelous. If they offend too many people they will cease to be a commercially viable newspaper. Some people are reacting to this cartoon as if it were a government publication or somehow forced upon the public.

Also the entire purpose of good political cartooning is to be controversial and confrontational. Delonas did his job in that regard, even if you disagree with or even abhor his message.